An evening with Manzur Al Matin, his family, and the memories of July movement

As soon as the door was opened, a golden retriever came out to greet me. After some quick petting and licking, I was welcomed inside. 

The house was full of books, musical instruments, and pets - two dogs, Lulu and Kuttus, and 10 cats. A young girl sat on the floor as a man taught her music notes on a harmonium. 

It was the house of Manzur Al Matin - a lawyer, television host and one of the best known faces of the recent mass uprising of Bangladesh. His support for the student protesters won hearts, as he stood by them like a guardian, a father, and a friend. 

The girl was Kakoli, the house help, and the music teacher was none other than the person I came to interview. 

His joint family lives in Mohammadpur, where they have rented two apartments. For the interview, I was joined by other family members too - Manzur's wife Sara Ahmed Shabontee, their son Akif al Wasi, his nephew, and Shabontee's mother and aunt. 

Manzur is an advocate of the Bangladesh Supreme Court and a senior news presenter at Channel 24. He completed his graduation from the department of law at the University of Dhaka. 

He is also a musician, who enrolled himself at BAFA (Bangladesh Academy of Fine Arts) in 2004. His musical instruments have their own compartments in the house - the tablas are kept in a wooden cabinet, the setar, sarod and the esraj wrapped in black cover and neatly tucked away. 

A physician by profession, Shabontee worked at the Dhaka City Hospital's burn unit for six years. She is currently writing her thesis paper on the state of mental health of doctors who work at burn units for a long time. 

Their son, Wasi, is studying in the seventh standard. He is also learning to play tabla like his father and loves music. Both father and son have the common music gurus -  they learn tabla or percussion from Ustad Sabbir Mokammel and they learn flute from Shamim Zahir. 

"And I wonder if Sheikh Hasina, the person who initiated all this violence, sought mental health counselling after her own family tragedy? If she did, she wouldn't have become this psychotic and caused so much trauma to all of us. I think now after this national tragedy, we all should take mental health very seriously."

"Although we are in two different professions, if you think about it, there are significant similarities in what we do. As a lawyer, Mazur has to listen to the pain and distress of people, which is what I have to do as well as a doctor," Shabontee said.

"The contrast is not in our profession, it's more about what we are as two persons," Manzur said. 

According to Shabontee, while Manzur is full of energy, she is more of a tranquility lover. "She is the one who keeps me in check really," the husband claimed. 

Both of them agree on one thing though: they do not want to impose anything on their son; he has the freedom to do whatever he decides. 

"Whatever profession he chooses, I would want him to continue his music journey, especially the tabla, because it is such a versatile instrument and goes with almost every kind of music and platform," said Manzur, the father. 

He said that the fact that they are parents to a son made them more vocal during the student's movement in July. "We cannot imagine something happening to Wasi, while hundreds of young boys were out on the streets and they were shot. We couldn't just stay home."    

According to Shabontee, being a parent meant she could feel the pain of every parent whose child was being wronged or tortured or killed at that time. 

"As a mother, I feel that it is important for me to listen to my son, and respect his choices. I would not have understood this had I not become a mother. When the children were being killed, it hurt the mother inside me and from the moment I felt those emotions, there was no way to remain silent anymore", Shabontee said. 

Manzur was a student of Dhaka Residential Model College. It was also the same area where Shabontee grew up, as her father was once the school's vice-principal and they lived inside the school campus. This is the same school where Farhan Faiyaaz, one of the martyrs of the 2024 July student's movement, also studied. 

"When we saw that Farhan was dead, we personally felt responsible. I felt if we had spoken up earlier, if all of us had revolted against what was happening, maybe Farhan would have been alive today," he said.

"When Farhan's father called me, I was scared thinking about how I would face him. Then I told myself, it was not just his father who lost a son, I had lost him too. It was all of us who lost another child, another brother, another friend. That was the only way I could face him, otherwise I couldn't. His son is dead, he is no more. But I still have my son alive in front of me," he went on, looking visibly upset.  

rutally gunned down, everyone was becoming deeply traumatised. 

Along with others, Shabontee built a network of doctors that works to provide rehabilitation, treatment etc to the survivors. "As a surgeon, I have seen a lot of bleeding and really grotesque injuries. However, the experience I had during this movement shocked me beyond anything." 

"We encountered a journalist who lost one of his eyes; there were 92 pellet shots in his body. Many people have lost their sights, limbs. The amount of violence we encountered; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is something that haunts many doctors, and other professionals," Manzur added. 

His wife explains her own post-traumatic experiences - she feels an added weight on her head, it feels heavy. Her thought process seems to have slowed down with her not being able to make quick decisions like before.

"We couldn't feel certain emotions for a while. There was a time when we couldn't feel the pain of the many deaths, as if our ability to grieve went numb. This is a sign of traumatic stress," she further added. 

Manzur said that it is not just them, many people are going through PTSD, which needs to be addressed. "And I wonder if Sheikh Hasina, the person who initiated all this violence, sought mental health counselling after her own family tragedy? If she did, she wouldn't have become this psychotic and caused so much trauma to all of us. I think now after this national tragedy, we all should take mental health very seriously."